WWW Wed Jun 26

Take a moment to admire the tidy dovetailing of this week’s WWW Wednesdays post with the actual correct day of the week.

What are you currently reading? The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. If having read the first sentence of something can be said to be “currently” reading it, this is my current read.

What did you recently finish reading? The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles. After a laborious month of reading this classic, during which I took a double-mystery hiatus to read Elizabeth Speller’s excellent novels, I have finally concluded my reading of The Odyssey. My prior reading of it in college, I now realize, must have been an abridged or abbreviated version, as I read many parts and tales this time that I had never known before. Is it my favorite book? Well, no, not at all; but I am glad to have read it.

What do you will think you’ll read next? One of the many library books I have checked out, including but not limited to The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, Blood and Iron by Elizabeth Bear, or The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan (featuring selkies).

Recently read

As this post bears no relationship whatsoever to Wednesday, I will abandon the traditional “WWW Wed” formula.

Recently I read: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. Or rather, Flo Gibson read it, and I listened to it while driving my car. I do love this story, especially Elinor. I haven’t chosen another audiobook because I fear the next one won’t live up.

And before that I read: The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller. I learned of this book on the blog of an avid mystery reader, and since it was set in a time period I enjoy (post-WWI England), I picked it up. Captain Laurence Bertram is back from the war but directionless, until the sister of an old schoolfellow asks him to look into his former friend’s death under mysterious circumstances.

And before that I didn’t read: We Are Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. Having greatly enjoyed the short story collection What I Didn’t See, I thought I would take a look at Fowler’s newest novel, but the first few pages didn’t grip me at all, so I did not properly begin reading it. I returned it to the library instead.

Currently: The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton by Elizabeth Speller. Three years after the events of the first Laurence Bertram novel, the WWI veteran visits acquaintances in the country who are haunted by the disappearance of a five-year-old child, Kitty, almost a decade prior. And then they find a fresh body hidden inside an old church.

WWW Wed Jun 12

What are you currently reading? The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles. My husband adopted a dog, a two-year-old male German shepherd and shar pei mix. He named it Argos. I demonstrated loving support by deciding to read Homer for the first time since my sophomore year of college. This is an engaging translation, which is to say that one hardly notices that it’s poetry.

What did you recently finish reading? Two books so far in June: Wool by Hugh Howey and The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker. In the former, people live in a huge underground silo; in the latter, the earth’s rotation begins to slow down. I liked Wool the better of the two reads, not least because it is partly a mystery, but also because, unlike The Age of Miracles, you find out why things are the way they are.

What do you think you will read next? We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, a just-released short story collection. Or perhaps Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, a young-adult spy novel set in WWII.

June 2013

Stuff I’ve Been Reading

1. Death Comes to Pemberley by James, P. D.
2. Dodger by Pratchett, Terry*
3. East by Pattou, Elizabeth
4. Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury, Ray*
5. London Falling by Cornell, Paul
6. The Golem and the Jinni by Wecker, Helene
7. Good Omens by Gaiman, Neil, and Terry Pratchett*
8. Sailing to Sarantium by Kay, Guy Gavriel
9. Lord of Emperors by Kay, Guy Gavriel
10. D.A. by Willis, Connie
11. Cybele’s Secret by Marillier, Juliet

Italics indicate library books, asterisks indicate audiobooks, and I didn’t finish reading (or listening to) numbers 2, 3, and 4. For the reasons of not great as an audiobook, 250 pages longer than it needed to be, and read by a terrible narrator, respectively.

This month I loved the Sarantine Mosaic duology by Guy Gavriel Kay and also highly enjoyed The Golem and the Jinni and Cybele’s Secret. Considering that I moved, ended a job, took a vacation, and started a new and better job, eleven-including-three-audiobooks is a respectable turnout for what was a very eventful month.

Plus I wrote a bit of Chapter Two to a Chapter One I hadn’t touched since March, so that’s good too.